Saturday, August 20, 2011

We had a couple of zucchini leftover from last weeks farmers market, so we tried something new -- making rellenos with them. We also made a smoked corn stock as the base for the hominy and potato soup.

The rellenos started with the zucchini cut in half and smoked for 20 minutes. The filling consisted of soy chorizo, smoked walnuts, cannellini beans, onion, garlic, Mexican oregano, salt & pepper. The zucchini were roasted at 425F for 20 minutes, removed from the oven with the seeds removed using a melon baller. The filling was added, along with a covering of Daiya, then put back into the oven for an additional 15 minutes.

The rellenos came out great -- the roasted zucchini was creamy inside and paired really well with the spicy filling and Daiya.

The soup started with smoked corn stock -- we saved the corn cobs from the corn cakes on Wednesday and smoked them with hickory wood for 25 minutes. It seemed like a natural to pair it with hominy and those red potatoes from the last week.

Next, we seared the cobs in the pressure cooker (with 1 tsp. of canola oil) until the got a little color.

Finally we added 10 cups of water and pressure cooked the cobs for 40 minutes.

The result was liquid gold -- and when used in the soup, it yielded a fantastically deep flavor with a nicely balanced sense of hickory and corn.

We had a couple of zucchini leftover from last weeks farmers market, so we tried something new -- making rellenos with them. We also made a smoked corn stock as the base for the hominy and potato soup.

The rellenos started with the zucchini cut in half and smoked for 20 minutes. The filling consisted of soy chorizo, smoked walnuts, cannellini beans, onion, garlic, Mexican oregano, salt & pepper. The zucchini were roasted at 425F for 20 minutes, removed from the oven with the seeds removed using a melon baller. The filling was added, along with a covering of Daiya, then put back into the oven for an additional 15 minutes.

The rellenos came out great -- the roasted zucchini was creamy inside and paired really well with the spicy filling and Daiya.

The soup started with smoked corn stock -- we saved the corn cobs from the corn cakes on Wednesday and smoked them with hickory wood for 25 minutes. It seemed like a natural to pair it with hominy and those red potatoes from the last week.

Next, we seared the cobs in the pressure cooker (with 1 tsp. of canola oil) until the got a little color.

Finally we added 10 cups of water and pressure cooked the cobs for 40 minutes.

The result was liquid gold -- and when used in the soup, it yielded a fantastically deep flavor with a nicely balanced sense of hickory and corn.

3. Links to recipes are shown when available, if there's no link, we'll try to cite the book/magazine issue from where it came. If there's no recipe cited, it usually means we made it up... and if there's nothing at all, enjoy the pretty pictures. ;)

4. We don't like ersatz food (i.e. tofu molded into the shape of a turkey for Thanksgiving), but we're funny that way.

5. A brief personal history. We were vegetarian for 7 years, and have been vegan for the last 20 years.